Monday, March 7, 2016

Tapping Maple Trees

Remember last fall when I hiked our land marking maple trees? Well a couple of weeks ago it was time to tap them.

We started using milk jug type containers to collect the sap, but quickly realized that we needed to switch to 5 gallon buckets. This didn't mean we would have gallons of maple syrup. It takes about 90 gallons to make just one gallon of syrup, once it's all boiled down!

There was still a lot of snow on our hike up to the top of our land, and on one steep stretch Paul and I were slipping and sliding like crazy. Luckily, it was a warm day and melted later on.

We had enough taps to do ten trees. Then we had to check them daily, and store the sap in the fridge until we would collect enough to boil.

I will let you know how it goes once we boil it down. It is an all day process to boil the syrup down, but we're hoping it will go smoothly. I will let you know!

24 comments:

That is so neat, hope you get it boiled down quickly. Years ago I would see the cows licking maple trees and found that the sap would drip down the trunk and evaporate leaving the sugar, I was able to lick higher than the cows so I guess maple sugar forms naturally.

We are in the middle of syrup country! Our neighbours have 35 acres, and a huge operation.Re: apple trees: I planted two last year. We'll see if they survive! The deer nibble the branches of the other trees!(ツ) from Cottage Country Ontario , ON, Canada!

So cool! My son had the joy of learning about the maple syrup process at his school last year. They walked through the woods with their snowshoes and "helped" tap the trees and collect the syrup. I bet your boys must love learning how you can do it right at home!